


Four Races Kara Danvers Won, And One She Didn't

by orphan_account



Series: New Year's Day 2016 [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/F, Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 03:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6140580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt requesting a 5+1 (yeah I cheated, it's 4), with Kara as a young Olympic athlete from the small southern town featured in my multifandom fic Autumn Blooms.  Supercat focused but with background mentions of ASOIAF characters.  :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Races Kara Danvers Won, And One She Didn't

Kara’s breath was even, her heartbeat steady, as she stretched long stretches outside the track, her dramatically cut calf muscles unfolding themselves as she leaned forward against the fence. She seemed serene enough to anyone who didn’t know her. Only her coach could see how much she was shaking inside. Her famous cousin had qualified for the Olympics some years before, and there was no shortage of pressure on Kara to pick up that mantle.

“You’re going to be fine,” Diana told her, and handed her a water bottle.

Kara took a sip and nodded silently. She trusted her coach implicitly; as a former Olympian herself, Diana knew what Kara’s struggles were, and not just the athletic ones.

“I know I’m good enough,” she said fiercely. “My times have been incredible lately. I know I’m as good as any of these girls.”

Diana shook her head. “No,” she answered with stunning calm as she pinned a number to Kara’s shirt. “You’re better. And that’s what you need to be comfortable with. You are better. A champion. Unless you see yourself as a champion, as worthy, you’ll find ways to trip over your own feet.”

When she rocketed out of the starting block twenty minutes later, Kara saw nothing but the track in front of her. Not the sky, not the crowd, not Diana, not the other runners. Just the track. Her purpose. Her mission.

Her qualifying time for the women’s hundred meter sprint was the best in regional history.

 

****

  
Kara had no memory of having learned Mandarin, but she understood a lot more than she expected to when she went to Beijing. Between her sponsorship appearances and her training, she had little time for sightseeing, but she was able to find her way around and managed to take some gorgeous architecture photos and a few juvenile pictures of the few unintentionally hilarious signs that the local officials hadn’t managed to scrub (“Racist Park”, the inexplicable sign in the airport that read “Fuck Vegetables”).

She stood for a moment outside of the Bird’s Nest stadium, Beijing’s Olympic Park, gazing up at it, feeling that there was something unearthly about it, yet also familiar. Feeling that she was meant to be here. Feeling that she was a champion. She was representing America. She was representing her hometown. She was representing girls everywhere. And she planned to do nothing less than represent them as a winner.

And so, when she sped from the starting block, this time in front of tens of thousands of people, and flashing lights, and roaring crowds, and television cameras, and paper streamers floating through the air in clouds, and the silks of 120 countries catching the stadium lights, it was the same as before. She didn’t see it. She only saw the track.

And she stood on the dais, accepting the gold, with the fastest time for the women’s sprint in Olympic history.

  
****

  
Kara was an American hero. Kara Danvers was on Wheaties boxes and in Nike ads. But she was a local hero too, and Mayor Baratheon arranged a parade for her, and his daughter Shireen, who ran her own newspaper for the fourth grade, interviewed her. It was by far Kara’s favorite interview ever.

Still, she was committed to living a normal life. She still ate at Angie’s Diner, still popped into Tyrell Farms & Floral for daisies for her windowsill, still had game nights with her high school buddies Winn, James, her sister Alex, and her former track teammate Robb (though it would take a long time to beat the hero worship weirdness out of him). Diana was careful to let her keep a little normalcy without sacrificing her training, because she’d seen enough athletes burn out early and resort to drugs to keep their careers going.

The most important race she would win, though, turned out not to be on the track. It was a race against time.

One morning, while out at lunch, she heard a commotion out in the street and realized that she smelled smoke. She rushed out to see that, some blocks down, the Southern Living office was on fire. All the writers and staff were milling out in the street coughing. She could hear the shriek of sirens, but they were distant. She sprinted down the block and grabbed hold of one of the employees. “Is everyone alright?” she shouted through the din.

The employee coughed. “Nobody’s seen Miss Grant!” he replied.

She didn’t know who Miss Grant was, but decided it didn’t matter. “Where’s her office?”

“Second floor. We don’t know if she’s gotten out or not.”

Kara looked at the smoke billowing out of the windows. The building didn’t look that big, she thought.

“Front or back?”

“Back,” the young man coughed, “but why–?”

“Left or right side?”

“Left, but–”

Before he could finish asking what he was going to ask, she was gone. The fastest woman in the world sprinted through the thick smoke, covering her mouth with her shirt collar, and sprinted up the stairs. The walls were wavering through the heat from the flames licking along them. She sprinted down to the end of the hall and kicked open the door on the left. She found an older blonde woman, semi-conscious, slumped against the wall. She’d clearly been trying to get the window open, but the smoke had gotten to her.

She was small. Small enough, Kara hoped silently. She leaned down, hoisted the woman up. “Miss Grant? It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

The woman looked at her woozily. “Who’s got you?”

She looked at the window. That lock was painted shut. Damn these old Southern buildings. She grabbed the desk chair, hurled it through the window glass, watched the window shatter.

“You don’t have to pay for that,” Miss Grant quipped as Kara dragged her to the window, gently deposited her onto the fire escape, and then climbed out. She clambered all the way down with her tiny form draped over one shoulder. And just like before, she didn’t see the smoke, she didn’t see the crowds, all she saw was her mission, what she needed to do, and this time, it was the woman in her arms.

  
*****

  
Nike and Oakley had Kara Danvers doing demonstrations all over the country. She’d run demo races against other American teammates, aspiring Olympians, high school athletes. This one was a partnership with Oakley and the American Lung Association to raise corporate donations for lung cancer prevention.

She still hadn’t shaken the feeling of running into the burning building, of carrying Miss Grant down the fire escape. She wondered what was involved in being a volunteer firefighter. Cereal ads and demo races were all well and fine, but there was a visceral thrill to literally pulling someone out of a fire.

As she crouched at the starting block, she glanced up into the stands and saw her. She looked a little different when she was alert and not coated with soot, but there was no mistaking. Kara won her race, despite the fact that she wasn’t focused on the track. She was focused on Cat Grant. Why was she there? What did she want? Why did she look so good in that white summer suit with those Audrey Hepburn sunglasses and that chunky necklace that was probably Lacroix or something else Kara would never have the fashion savvy to pick out for herself.

She jogged up to her lightly. “Miss Grant?”

Cat Grant sauntered down out of the stands and onto the grass. “Miss Danvers.” A small smile played around her lips. “I came to thank you personally for saving my life. I don’t know whether I’d have made it if everyone else had decided to wait around for dial-a-prayer.”

Kara smiled shyly. She reached out and shook her hand. She’d heard Cat Grant was a formidable woman, but she was still surprised by the grip the tiny woman had. “Anyone would have done what I did.”

“No, they wouldn’t have. And had they, they might not have succeeded on account of them not being an Olympic gold medalist.” She took the glasses off, and Kara gulped when she saw her smoky eyes flick up and down her sweating body. She felt strangely naked all of a sudden.

“Really, it was nothing.”

“It was not nothing,” Cat replied, with a tone that said she wasn’t about to take no for an answer. “And I’d like to take you to dinner to say thank you.”

 

*******

  
Kara was finishing up an interview with a CNN reporter in Atlanta. As she was shaking hands with her and striding out of the studio, her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was Cat.

They’d been together for a while now, and it was delicious and wonderful and trying as hell but she wasn’t in the least bit sorry about it. She opened the text. It said, _Baby, hurry home._

Kara texted back, _You know I’m in Atlanta._

Cat texted back doggedly, _You have two hours. Chop chop. If you miss the deadline, you know what I want._

Atlanta traffic was literally the worst. Kara hated driving in Atlanta. She knew she was absolutely going to miss Cat’s deadline. This was a race against time that she was going to lose. And she decided, as she crawled up Cat’s bed that evening, naked, with her three gold medals hanging around her neck, the way Cat liked, that this was a loss she was prepared to accept.


End file.
